Your future, our focus
Connections count.
And they’re paying recruiting dividends for Northwest College wrestling coach Jim Zeigler and his program.
The latest to sign with Trapper wrestling and enroll at NWC in the fall of 2020 are a 170-pound Nevada state champion and a 280-pound heavyweight from Alabama. There are related Zeigler stories to each recruit.
Tahjae Jenkins-Harris compiled an unbeaten 35-0 record at Legacy High School in North Las Vegas this past season on his way to the Nevada state championship at 170 pounds. He is originally from St. Charles, Missouri, and his father was in the military.
The family moved to Huron, South Dakota, and Jenkins-Harris wrestled two years there, placing second in the state tournament at 152 pounds as a sophomore and third as a junior at 160 pounds. After relocating to Las Vegas for his senior year, he claimed the 170-pound Nevada title with a perfect season.
Jenkins-Harris earned the attention of a lot of wrestling programs, including the University of Wyoming. It was through a UW wrestling assistant coach, McCade Ford, that Zeigler and NWC entered the picture. Ford was a two-time junior college All American wrestler for Northwest College between 2008 and 2010 who went on to compete for UW.
With Ford’s referral, Zeigler contacted and ultimately signed Jenkins-Harris. He will wrestle at 165 or 174 pounds for the Trappers, Zeigler said.
As for Terrell Barton, he’s the second heavyweight to sign in Zeigler’s 2020 class. He comes from Buckhorn High School in New Market, Alabama. Barton is 6-feet, 1-inch tall and weighs 280 pounds. He placed sixth in the Alabama state wrestling tournament both his junior and senior seasons.
“He lost in the semi-finals his senior year and ended up forfeiting down to sixth place in the 6-A division, out of seven divisions in Alabama,” Zeigler said.
Zeigler calls Barton a “raw” talent, and he welcomes the challenge. Barton was home-schooled and only wrestled and played football his junior and senior years of high school.
“A lot of times when these guys have only wrestled for a couple of years, they’re raw,” Zeigler said. “He hasn’t wrestled long enough to develop bad habits, and I see things in his films that I really like. He is a fantastic athlete, and he is motivated.”
Barton’s high school wrestling (and football) coach in Alabama was Keith Henderson, father of John David Henderson, who won a national junior college championship at 149 pounds in 2016 wrestling for NWC.
Zeigler has also signed two-time state heavyweight champion Coy Trainor of Lovell in this year’s recruiting class.
“We’re going to have two heavyweights. It’s going to be competitive. They’re different, but they’re complementary,” Zeigler said.